F-holes aren't "traditional" in fiddles -- THEY'RE NECESSARY. The bass bar (which runs under the bass foot of the bridge) and the sound post (which sits under the treble foot) are used to balance the sound (bass bar) and couple the top to the back (sound post). The tension on the top of an archtop instrument, such as the violin or mandolin is very high (note how "tipped back" the fingerboard is, and how much an angle there is across the bridge), and a top with a hole in the line between the tailpiece and the neck would either collapse or require such heavy bracing that there would be no sound. The same holds for the archtop guitar, though there have been "soundhole" archtops (the Howard Roberts models, for one). The difference in tone between these models and the f-hole archtops is considerable, and is a matter of personal choice. Similarly, an A-model mandolin, with a sound-hole, is different from an f-model (and F mandolins were not named as such because of the f-holes; it was just Gibson's numbering system -- L=guitar, H=mandocello RB=regular banjo, etc.). So the reason there aren't "a-model" fiddles is 'cause they'd sound like crap. Modern makers might manage to construct a decent-sounding one, especially if they could use computer modeling, but early experiments showed that the f-hole construction gave the best results, and they still do it that way. If that's "tradition," well, there's a reason for it. Bob
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